The SDFLA Blog is dedicated to providing news and notes regarding federal practice in the Southern District of Florida. The New Times calls the blog "the definitive source on South Florida's federal court system." All tips on court happenings are welcome and will remain anonymous. Please email David Markus at dmarkus@markuslaw.com

Monday, October 05, 2009

Supreme Court to hear dogfighting video case

Brian Maloney summarizes Stevens v. United Stateshere. The issue is an interesting one: whether the First Amendment protects videos depicting animal cruelty. The Third Circuit found that the First Amendment did in fact protect such videos. From ScotusBlog:

The en banc Third Circuit overturned Stevens’s conviction, holding that the statute was unconstitutional on its face as a content-based prohibition on protected speech. The court first held that the speech regulated by § 48 is protected under the First Amendment. In its view, only one of the established categories of unprotected speech – child pornography – is even somewhat similar to the speech prohibited under § 48. The Supreme Court’s opinion in New York v. Ferber, holding that child pornography is not protected speech, set forth a number of factors to consider when determining whether to “create” a new category of unprotected speech. Applying these factors to the case at hand, the Third Circuit emphasized that although preventing cruelty to animals is “appealing . . . to our sensibilities,” it is not a compelling governmental interest in the context of free speech. Thus, it held, § 48 fails strict scrutiny because “it serves no compelling government interest, is not narrowly tailored to achieve such an interest, and does not provide the least restrictive means to achieve such an interest.”

I had a similar case involving cockfighting videos, detailed here but the case never got ruled on as we had to voluntarily dismiss the complaint. Shoot, this could have been my ticket to the Supreme Court...

The Southern District of Florida blog was started in 2005 by David Oscar Markus, who is a criminal trial and appellate lawyer in Miami, Florida. He frequently practices in federal courts around the country, including his hometown, the Southern District of Florida and the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. He is a former law clerk to then-Chief Judge of the District, Edward B. Davis.